An Artifact From a Grim Era in Detroit’s Showrooms

Onlookers can easily learn the year and model of Alan Spiegel’s Chevy Citation.Credit
Tony Cenicola/The New York Times

“This was the car that started the decline,” Alan Spiegel said, turning his beige Chevrolet Citation into the parking lot of the Bridge View Tavern, a restaurant that, he promised, served the best burgers in Westchester County.

The Citation and its General Motors siblings, Mr. Spiegel suggested, epitomized the ills of American car manufacturing in the 1980s — and the model’s ultimate failure opened a path for the success of Japanese brands that are today’s top sellers.

Mr. Spiegel’s culinary judgment would prove spot on. His theory about the role this particular model played in the history of the auto industry required a bit more explanation, however, starting with a review of events that took place in this neighborhood.

From the foot of Beekman Avenue in Sleepy Hollow, a suburb 25 miles north of New York City, the view stretches across a sprawling empty lot on the east bank of the Hudson River, immediately north of the Tappan Zee Bridge. The 99-acre site was once occupied by the General Motors North Tarrytown Assembly plant.

The factory, which built Chevrolets and other G.M. vehicles for 81 years, closed in 1996 and was razed by 2000. Its crumbling concrete foundation remains an eyesore in an otherwise picturesque setting.

Mr. Spiegel, 53, briefly reflected on the effect of the plant’s closing on the local businesses and residents. And then he offered that a substantial amount of the blame for its demise — along with G.M.’s painful march toward Chapter 11 reorganization in 2009 — belonged to cars like the two-door hatchback he drives.

Mr. Spiegel’s Citation, a sport-oriented version called the X-11, was not built in North Tarrytown, but in Oklahoma City. The plant location mattered little, though; the cars proved so troublesome that G.M. stopped making them after six years.

That was also true of its corporate brethren, the Buick Skylark, Oldsmobile Omega and Pontiac Phoenix, known collectively as the X-cars based on G.M.’s internal designation. The company’s fledgling front-wheel-drive compacts, introduced for 1980, all suffered myriad problems in their mechanical design and assembly quality. They were recalled repeatedly and incurred customers’ ire.

Mr. Spiegel, who was living on Long Island when the cars were introduced, said he was captivated by the Citation X-11 nonetheless. He had considered buying a two-year-old model in 1983 from a dealer in Sayville, N.Y. The asking price was $6,000 for a well-optioned car that had a window sticker of about $9,000 when new.

“I had $4,000,” he said, explaining that the car was out of reach. “Maybe that was a good thing.”

Instead, Mr. Spiegel bought a 1979 Ford Mustang. His marriage a few years later, and then the birth of twins, Adam and Samantha, in 1993, took sporty coupes off his radar for years, pushing him toward family cars like the Volvo station wagons that he prefers to buy used, and an older Lexus that his wife, Stacy, drives. When family finances have allowed, he has enjoyed owning a few just-for-fun cars, including a 1968 Cadillac convertible and a 1970 Chevy Camaro, neither one in show condition.

Finding a drawing of the X-11 he made while a student at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn — he earned his degree in industrial design there in 1982 — rekindled Mr. Spiegel’s interest. His decades-long affection for the car finally blossomed into a relationship when a friend, Cary Sparer, helped him find an ’81 X-11 for sale last year on Craigslist near Altoona, Pa.

After some negotiation, Mr. Spiegel bought the car, unseen, for $1,200. He saw his Citation for the first time when it was delivered to his home on a flatbed.

“I figured if it was junk, I’d just get rid of it,” he said. “I was willing to take the chance.”

The car appeared to be in good condition, with just a few small rust spots. The odometer showed 30,000 miles, yet Mr. Spiegel was dubious.

“It could have been 30,000 or 130,000,” he said. “It’s hard to tell with these cars, because they aged badly and quickly.”

The car’s V-6 engine, it turned out, needed to be rebuilt. That cost $2,000.

In the restaurant’s parking lot, Mr. Spiegel dived into a salesman’s walkaround demonstration of the Citation’s features, pointing out its attractions as well as some foibles. He started with the interior, finding some humor in the odd vertical layout of the radio controls and the faux stitching molded into the vinyl door trim. He was most critical of the poor assembly quality and materials.

“The plastic was junk,” he said frankly. “It would break down from sunlight and turn chalky white and then disintegrate.” The car’s pop-up sunroof, an aftermarket accessory, is a particular sore point.

“I hate it,” Mr. Spiegel said. “But I think it’s the only reason the headliner didn’t fall in. It’s held up by the sunroof frame.”

He turned to the positive, praising the car’s roomy cabin, cavernous trunk and excellent visibility. And his car came with the original components of the X-11 performance upgrade package. The 14-inch alloy wheels, unique to the X-11, have the Citation name cast into them, a surprising detail given the car’s frugal character. The hood, made of fiberglass, is a variation on the so-called cowl induction design that was a highlight of the carmaker’s muscle cars in the late 1960s and early 1970s. An inlet at the rear of the raised center section feeds cool air to the carburetor, ostensibly to increase power.

The “High Output V6” badges on the hood proclaim the centerpiece of the X-11 option package — a 2.8-liter V6 engine that produced 135 horsepower (the Corvette’s V8 engine made 190 that year) instead of the standard V6’s 110. Contemporary magazine reviews measured the X-11’s acceleration as nearly equal to the Datsun 280 ZX, a sports car costing thousands of dollars more.

Mr. Spiegel is fond of his car’s 4-speed manual transmission. “I wouldn’t have bought one with the automatic,” he said. “It’s pretty quick with the 4-speed. It’s very light, about 2,700 pounds.”

His favorite aspect is the car’s styling.

“I like the boxy look, especially the front end,” he said. “It’s totally different from early 1970s cars and totally different than the later 1980s. Ford went to its aero look soon after, so the Citation looked old very quickly. But it’s so period. I like it a lot.”

The color is a negative, though.

“The beige kills me, and it’s not even correct, it’s a more fleshy tone,” he said about a repaint the previous owner had done. “These cars all have the wrong decals if they’re repainted. I had one of my sign vendors recreate the original decal in vinyl,” he added, pointing to the large X-11 emblem on the door.

The car’s relative rarity also appeals to Mr. Spiegel. The 1980 X-11 package was purely cosmetic. The performance upgrades arrived for 1981, and Chevy made 11,600 that year. Over the next four years 9,000 more were built.

“People don’t know what it is, because they all disappeared a long time ago,” he said.

Even so, the maker of Johnny Lightning toy cars recently saw fit to reissue the Citation X-11. Mr. Spiegel bought several for about $3 each.

Out on the road, he blamed the carburetor for a slightly rough idle.

“It’s a computer-controlled nightmare,” he said. “The man who rebuilt the engine actually worked on these engines in the factory, and even he said he couldn’t do much more for it.”

Once under way, the engine smoothed out and emitted a pleasing exhaust growl. At cruising speed on Interstate 287, the Citation rode smoothly, with just an occasional rattle from under the dash to mar an acceptably quiet ride. Entering the Bronx River Parkway, Mr. Spiegel clearly seemed to enjoy hustling his X-11 through the curves.

Brief spurts of acceleration testified to the engine’s generous low-speed torque, but because the clutch-pedal adjuster needed to be repaired, Mr. Spiegel was careful not to push too hard. A loud snapping sound could be heard after some gearshifts.

He bought the replacement part on eBay, and he has the Citation factory service manual. For additional support, Mr. Spiegel also follows what he describes as a zealous group of Citation owners on Yahoo.

“I can’t wait to get the clutch fixed so I can really beat on the car,” he said.

Alan Spiegel

Location Scarsdale, N.Y.

Occupation Construction project manager

Vehicle 1981 Chevrolet Citation X-11

Acquired 2012

A version of this article appears in print on November 10, 2013, on Page AU1 of the New York edition with the headline: An Artifact From a Grim Era in Detroit’s Showrooms. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe